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A Bath man has been arrested for allegedly sharing child pornography over the Internet for the last 10 years, according to authorities.
Kurt L. Harahus, no age given, of County Route 15, was arrested after federal agents allegedly found him in possession of hundreds of digital files of child pornography. Harahus later admitted to the investigators that he had been sharing child pornography over the Internet for 10 years, according to a federal affidavit.
Some of the images showed girls as young as 2 engaged in sexual activity with adult males, according to the affidavit. Some files showed child bondage, the affidavit said. The files included both videos and still images, according to the FBI.
The investigation into Harahus began Nov. 18 when an undercover FBI agent logged onto a publicly available peer-to-peer file-sharing program and observed someone online with the name “creeper69.” The agent browsed the user’s directory and found what he believed to be child pornography.
Two additional searches, on Dec. 13 and Dec. 16, of creeper69’s directory found additional images of suspected child pornography, according to the affidavit.
A subpoena was served on the Internet service provider for information about the IP address of creeper69, which the provider said belonged to Harahus.
A federal search warrant was executed on Harahus’ residence Jan. 31. Harahus was subsequently interviewed and made various admissions about the distribution of child pornography, the affidavit said.
Harahus said he used the screen name creeper 69 and had traded child pornography for 10 years, the affidavit said. Also, he said that two weeks before his arrest, he had been warned by a fellow trader that another fellow trader had been arrested. Harahus told investigators he physically destroyed his desktop computer and threw the hard drive in a river, the affidavit said.
A state police dive team recovered the hard drive, and a backup hard drive containing Harahus’ alleged child pornography collection was recovered from behind a model-car shelf in his living room, the affidavit said.
A criminal complaint against Harahus was filed Monday in U.S. District Court. Specific charges weren’t immediately available.
A Bath man has been arrested for allegedly sharing child pornography over the Internet for the last 10 years, according to authorities.
Kurt L. Harahus, no age given, of County Route 15, was arrested after federal agents allegedly found him in possession of hundreds of digital files of child pornography. Harahus later admitted to the investigators that he had been sharing child pornography over the Internet for 10 years, according to a federal affidavit.
Some of the images showed girls as young as 2 engaged in sexual activity with adult males, according to the affidavit. Some files showed child bondage, the affidavit said. The files included both videos and still images, according to the FBI.
The investigation into Harahus began Nov. 18 when an undercover FBI agent logged onto a publicly available peer-to-peer file-sharing program and observed someone online with the name “creeper69.” The agent browsed the user’s directory and found what he believed to be child pornography.
Two additional searches, on Dec. 13 and Dec. 16, of creeper69’s directory found additional images of suspected child pornography, according to the affidavit.
A subpoena was served on the Internet service provider for information about the IP address of creeper69, which the provider said belonged to Harahus.
A federal search warrant was executed on Harahus’ residence Jan. 31. Harahus was subsequently interviewed and made various admissions about the distribution of child pornography, the affidavit said.
Harahus said he used the screen name creeper 69 and had traded child pornography for 10 years, the affidavit said. Also, he said that two weeks before his arrest, he had been warned by a fellow trader that another fellow trader had been arrested. Harahus told investigators he physically destroyed his desktop computer and threw the hard drive in a river, the affidavit said.
A state police dive team recovered the hard drive, and a backup hard drive containing Harahus’ alleged child pornography collection was recovered from behind a model-car shelf in his living room, the affidavit said.
A criminal complaint against Harahus was filed Monday in U.S. District Court. Specific charges weren’t immediately available.
